Review:

on 2011-02-22 CharlesMartel Said:

I have to say I can't stand this. I find it disjointed, erratic and at times irritating. I know that Nick Cave is one the great avant-garde musicians to come out of Australia but this really is not good. It is a twelve-song album recorded in 1982 from two separate concerts held in Melbourne. Quite why it took three years to release it I don't know - probably waiting for the band to break up so that the record company could act relatively unopposed.

In fact, quite why this was released at all, I don't know. The band (or what was left of it) objected to its release but for some reason the record company pursued the project and that is what is so bizarre. It is pretty clear that the recording engineer had not done his job properly. The sound quality is poor and intermittently crap - some form of problem with the system I guess. But the result is to provide serious distraction from the performance and that is never a good thing.

By the time this was released the Birthday Party were in the process of falling apart under the influence of drugs. This album forms a snapshot of that process in action and as a consequence is a picture of a group of individuals playing music rather than as a band. Maybe that is its problem. They were allegedly an excellent live band, not that this recording would provide any evidence for that assertion, but the tension between the band members (and to a lesser extent between the band and their fans) is evident in the inter-song banter.

To be honest, I was never into the Birthday Party that much in the first place. I bought this pretty much because the Birthday Party were at one time being touted as yet another the future of rock and roll. As far as I am concerned the only really decent thing the band ever did was "Release the Bats" and even that on this LP is not up to scratch (and it is clear from the banter on the record that Nick Cave at least didn't like it either). The music just doesn't comprise what I tend to like in music - it has a lack of melody and a complete disregard for structure and coherence.

If this was to represent the best that Nick Cave had to offer then surely he is overrated as a musician and a songwriter. My opinion of the Birthday Party was confirmed rather than changed by this album. I bought it on spec and after listening to it a few times I realised I had made a mistake. I have barely listened to it since though occasionally one track will pop up to confound me on iPod shuffle.

I guess at the end of the day, I am musically quite conservative in many ways. Or am I? No, you're right, I am not. The fact that I find a lot of prog rock pretentious, and am able to see behind the hype for a number of other bands who are highly rated for their so-called originality, and do not get the point of most of the post-rock that floats around probably says a lot about me and my musical taste. I like my music to tell me something. I do not like my music to be either a constant repetition of the same thing or make me sit there and think WTF?

Well with this, I sit and think WTF?
Rating: 2/10